It's been a long time since I had news, so here's an informational update! I've added a control+click feature to insert a terrain without erasing the rest of the cell contents. Also, I'm working on dialogs to edit the properties of individual tiles. Here's a preview:
I hope to be able to release a program update with these features in the next couple weeks, so stay tuned.

Well, I never would have thought I'd ever be making this post, but here it is...I have made the difficult decision to begin the process of shutting down my website.
Over the last few years I had already begun to explain my diminished presence in the CC world as due to real life, and there were moments here and there where I did manage to carve out time for certain projects (level set page changes, playing through CC2/CCLP1, designing a few new levels). But they were few and far between, and I was always just assuming that "down the road" things would slow down and I would get into a routine where I could make "real life" and "CC life" coexist.
But here we are, a few years later, and I find myself with a full-time job, a wife, a house to take care of, changing interests and priorities, and it is just seeming less and less likely that I can make that happen. Even when I do find myself with some CC time, I feel oddly divided. On the one hand, I feel like it is never enough - I get a chunk of time to solve two CCLP4 levels and wish I had more time to better optimize my scores or to continue playing. On the other hand, after playing I see household chores piling up that I should have been taking care of, and feel guilty that I even took the time that I did to play CC. Either way I look at it results in an unsatisfying feeling.
I'm not at all saying it's not fun anymore - it is - and this is not a goodbye post. However, I might be less active than before and will not be able to keep on maintaining my site any longer.
I am open to a bankruptcy buyout if anyone would like to keep certain aspects of my site going, especially:
- the Tile World 2 homepage
- the Chip's Challenge Creator homepage
- the level set pages
and if someone really desires:
- the AVI archives
- MikeL2/3/4 scoreboards
- the page with the latest 64-bit CC options
- my listings of links
Whoever would like to take over hosting any of these pages, I will send them (and the database) to you to officially become "yours". (For Chip's Controls I plan on re-uploading the latest version here with all the HTML pages included.)
Hope everyone is doing well - thanks for reading, and now back to your regularly scheduled Chipping.
Mike Lask

Download
Hello Chipsters!
I am currently working on making a TASing emulator for CC! With this emulator hope to emulate Chips challenge accurately and provide many useful features for routing and even casual playing.
Features
Rewinding
Savestates
Frame-by-frame playing
TWS Playback
Continue recording from playback
Easy solution sharing
View the monster list, slip list, button connections and chip's move history as you play
Record gifs
Cheats
And much, much more to come!
Issues
Sliding blocks leaving traps onto sliding tiles cause slide delay when they shouldn't
TWS files may end a move early
TWS files with clicks may not play back correctly
Some unknown issues
Currently, 588/596 official levels play correctly. See all known issues.
Github repository
Feel free to request any features in this thread or by messaging markus#1180 on discord.

Speaking of raising the bar, that was quite a find you made recently! I do have hopes to give CCLP1+4 a go some day, but I have a couple of other projects I want to be finished (or at least reasonably finished) first. You're the second person to ask me about SuperCC. I haven't checked it out, but based on the description it seems similar to the tool I use. Went ahead and joined Discord.
And, um...
cclp3 #71 (How to Get Around in Venice): 431 (+25, b+1)
6093980

Chip's Challenge 3 is apparently happening eventually. Here are some improvements from CC2 that I would like to see.
Need-to-haves:
A sand tile. This would block monsters and blocks but allow Chip and Melinda (with hiking boots?) to cross. There is no tile with these properties in CC2 while even Chuck's Challenge has one. Using fake green walls as a block blocker is awkward.
A no-drop tile. An overlay tile that prevents boots from being dropped on it. Blank no signs and no signs with irrelevant tools technically do the job but they are unsightly and don't convey their intent as well as a dedicated tile would.
Native support for zero-directional blocks. This is the most commonly used "hacked" tile and is a logical extension of the other directional blocks.
Wiring on a separate layer. Wiring in CC2 is powerful, but still held back by their restriction to being placed on just floor and steel walls. The ideal solution is to combine the best of CC1's connection system and CC2's wiring system and allow wires to exist on a dedicated layer. Visibility while playing a level could be toggled by a key and they could appear as a transparent overlay. This would also fix the oddity of pink and black buttons not appearing when hide logic is on.
More consistent monster behavior. Bugs and rovers should not avoid canopies. Fireballs and ghosts with flippers should not avoid turtles. Rovers with fire boots should not avoid fire.
Support for bowling balls starting on clone machines. The ghost setup takes up an absurd amount of space for such a simple result.
Allow blocked green teleports to be skipped over.
Support for lowercase letters.
Give teeth monsters north-facing tile, and give blue teeth the same number of animation frames as red teeth.
Automatic recording while playing a level, like Tile World's. This should be easy to apply to normal play since it already exists in the editor.
Higher res graphics, 64x64? No 3D graphics like Puzzle Studio or Chuck's Challenge please
Extra green chip/bomb tiles.
More diverse sound effects. CC2 has fewer sound effects than the original Lynx game despite the wealth of new elements.
Important bug fixes:
Disallow hooks from attempting to pull monsters.
Disallow the player from being able to slap monsters.
If blocks can be pushed consecutively on floor, allow them to be pushed consecutively on force floors.
Trap logic fix, including multiple trap button problems and the issues with wired traps
Consistent snatching and hook block slapping behavior (i.e. not monster order related)
Flame jet max distance fix
The two disappearing Chip glitches and the Waterbirth glitch
Thin wall on closed side of railroad should not have any effect except when the RR sign is equipped
Allow player to step off force floor if they start the level on them
Allow key inventory to exceed 255.
Want-to-have fun stuff:
Allow blocks to be pushed at 2x speed when Chip has speed boots.
Make blocks have no effect on recessed walls. This would revert their behavior back to CC1. Ice blocks and directional blocks would still be able to be pushed on them, and turtles could still retain the CC2 "flicking" behavior.
More thin tiles: walls are the only tiles to have thin versions of them even though other tiles could be adapted to this concept. Puzzle Studio has thin toggle walls. Thin gravel, thin force floors, thin recessed walls, etc. have potential.
Lasers: Puzzle Studio and Escape have these. A beam it shot in one (or more) directions until stopped by a wall and other elements like blocks and perhaps monsters. Chip dies when hit by the beam. Maybe a beam receiver that converts the beam to an electrical current.
Reflectors: Chuck's Challenge has these, though they apply to the spitter enemy. Pushable block that reflects bowling balls and lasers 90 degrees. Could be rotated with train tracks.
Logic gate enhancements: Add NOR and XNOR gate for completeness. Add diodes which allow current in only one direction, the ability to specify a delay in frames from 1-10, which will make synchronizing circuits easier and remove the need for chained OR gates (Circuit City contains an example of long OR gate chains)
"Frictionless" blocks (don't have a better name): Copy of the yellow blocks from Escape. These are blocks, once pushed in some direction, that continue on a straight path until they hit an obstacle. Think of tanks but pushable in any direction by Chip.
Score gate: Exists in Challengo, essentially a socket that the player can open if they have enough points but will deduct from their score.

It makes me happy to see you're still here from time to time, raising the bar for the rest of us to aspire to reach. Do you have any plans to look at CCLP1 or CCLP4 ever? (CCLP1 in particular would probably take you no time at all to blaze through.) Have you checked out Markus' SuperCC optimization tool; if so how does it compare to your own programs that you no doubt have made? Is there any chance of you ever gracing us with your presence in the Discord server? Hopefully your life is going well; when you achieve world domination please treat us kindly

Sometime in 2016, I attempted at a project that would have been my ultimate CC1 set - Walls of CCLP1. I was inspired enough by Joshua Bone's Walls of CC1 to attempt it but as an actual CC1 set.
It looked promising, I had built about 20 levels for it, but due to lack of ideas and just the overall thought I was probably trying too hard, I lost sight of the project and aborted it completely.
What was made for it was savaged and placed into what some call "JoshL6-extended", but the thought of fully doing a walls of set remained in the back of my mind since then, just at that point in time, I wasn't ready. Maybe it was best to save it for another day.
Then out comes Walls of CCLP4, which brought back an amazing amount of inspiration to try a walls of set again. But there was a problem now. I already tried with CCLP1 and didn't want to go at it again so I passed that up (Both J.B. and Isaac started up their own Walls of CCLP1 sets anyway!)
As mentioned, CC1's were being done by Joshua Bone and likewise CCLP2's walls by mobius respectively as CC2 sets, though neither of them as CC1 walls of sets honestly didn't sound fun so I passed them up as well. CCLP4... I did consider and it was very tempting since Jeffrey and I are vastly different designers so there probably wouldn't have been overlap? But at the end of the day I didn't want to take from Jeffrey's set so that was passed up too.
With that out of the way, what other official set was left?
CCLP3. Boy was this an interesting set to use for a walls of set but a really fun and challenging one nonetheless. Not only that, but CCLP3 is what brought me into this community, so this set despite my feelings towards it, has some kind of meaning to me. This project started on March 27th, 2018, exactly 8 months ago, with Socket Shrine using Toggle Bust as the first designed level while Take a Bite of My Heart using Item Unlocker being the last designed on November 15th.
Working on this set reminded me not to be afraid to design certain things and don't let others dislikes affect what you want to build. Compared to all my other sets, this set I've easily put the most amount of effort into. There's no questioning that. I explored and toyed with so many concepts and ideas for this set like you wouldn't believe. I went with ideas I thought I'd never use. I worked with walls configurations I thought I'd never hit an idea on and almost certainly would have never built outside of this project. Every level I've made here... I had so much fun making each and every one of them, even the ones that took forever to get an idea for. But that's the joy of building new levels out of predetermined wall patterns. There's always something new or different to build with them. Just look at Semi-Perfect Stronghold, Condemned Faculty, and Tank Game Reborn which all used wall patterns that have been used at least 3 times prior.
Now about the files - there are three of them:
Walls_of_CCLP3 is the difficulty ordered version and is the recommended/preferred one to play through.
Walls of CCLP3-A is the CCLP3 ordered version.
Walls of CCLP3-B is the order by how the levels were designed.
The latter two versions are included mostly for fun and whether you play through them instead is up to you. But be warned - those don't include a difficulty curve or any kind of content balancing whatsoever. In case I missed something that needs fixing, which is sadly always a possibility, all versions will be updated as so none get left out. Every level has been tested and solved in both rulesets.
Many thanks to the various people who have played through the iterative releases throughout the year and/or provided feedback! It was extremely appreciated and helpful in making this set as good as it can be.
Will this be my last CC1 set? Honestly with how many times I've said that, I doubt it at this point. CC2 designing has been on the mind lately but I won't ever ditch CC1 designing for it. Call it a comfort thing, but I have more fun with it than probably ever will for CC2. However, with CC2LP1 happening soon, who knows? I'll design whatever I want at this point. I have a few CC1 projects in mind at this very moment... but that's for another time.
And with that, I sincerely hope you enjoy my take on the Walls of CCLP3.
-Josh Lee [Flareon350]

CCLP1 (MS) 093: 327 (+3, b+1) [Flame War] (joint bold with Kacper, set November 5th)
So, this happened. I did say I was going to go for the rest of these if this happened...
028: 276 (+1, b) [The Last Starfighter] (1 hour of attempts, set November 6th)
I went for BoaP first, immediately after. After a few hours I went to sleep for the night. When I got back from work (early, due to being sick) on the 6th I didn't want to continue that grind. So, I went for this one and miraculously got it. Probably around 7-8 hours total, +/- 2 hours counting my past attempts. I'm super glad I didn't choke the execution here. Then back on the BoaP grind.
I ended up unable to go to work on the 7th due to this stupid cold. That just meant more blob time. 117: 255 (+2, b) [Blobs on a Plane] (8 hours of attempts, set November 7th)
It's better to be lucky than good. I made a tactical mistake on the way back from the suction boots after a good thirty second think, with a blob 2 tiles up and another 2U2R. I had misjudged the second blob and thought it could interfere, and so elected to step LU instead of U, deliberately spending my 2 moves of buffer. In hindsight, this was a mistake given the probabilities of success for what I knew. U was more likely to work as LU given an L blob move would spell disaster. Except, I had misjudged the step AND U would have been immediate death, as the blob moved D, and so LU was actually the correct decision in a vacuum for survival! Though even given hindsight, a very difficult move to have to make. And so, the last of the random levels fell. (further analysis shows that some of that analysis could be wrong. Regardless, my mental picture and the actual level didn't mesh and I made a questionable decision that happened to be the absolute correct one)
051: 274 (+1, b) [H2O Below 273 K] (slightly earlier today)
This one was inevitable. Still took 5 or 6 hours of attempts, but some heavy duty practice on the left half paid off. Dropped [1/2] in rooms 6 and 7 but hung on in the end. 6,006,000 (147 bolds) (b)

One strange thing about being away from participating in the CC level design scene consistently for several years is that returning to the editor doesn't quite feel as natural as riding a bike for the first time in several years. Design trends shift; even the way people play the game somewhat shifts as well. The last time I made a 149-level set, it was around the time CCLP1 was being produced. I created JBLP1 as something of a reactionary response to my previous level design efforts that made the cut for CCLP3. With that set's high difficulty, perhaps something easier was in order, and it certainly helped that the community was producing a level pack that seemed to be assembled with many similar sentiments at the forefront. Between then and now, we've seen three official set releases, one for an entirely new-to-us CC game, one a Lynx-compatible version of CCLP2, and the fairly diverse CCLP4, which saw many of the design trends seen in CCLP1 evolved a bit further.
So with all of that as part of the community's history, and with many designers trying to find their voice in the world of CC2 design, it seemed like as good a time as any for CC1 design to experience a bit of experimental renaissance as well. Perhaps not everything had to be a crowd-pleasing medium-weight level, or a neatly symmetrical design, though those certainly have their place. But there was still that element of where to even start with respect to design. That's when the latest level design trend offered a solution: the Walls Of level. Although Joshua Bone's Walls of CC1 (built for CC2) was the first to begin construction as a full reimplementation of an official level pack, Jeffrey Bardon's Walls of CCLP4 was the first such reimplementation to be fully completed. As a collective whole, CCLP4's walls offered some of the most open-ended redesign opportunities of any official set, and Jeffrey exercised a lot of care in ensuring that he built in concepts that complemented the layouts with which he worked while also giving them a distinct personality of their own.
After recording a full Let's Play of Walls of CCLP4, I was energized to begin construction on my own full Walls Of set. CCLP1 felt like the next best thing, and arguably more than CCLP4, it provided a decently wide range of level sizes in addition to wall patterns. If anything, I knew building an entire set out of an official set's walls would stretch me as a designer in ways I wasn't used to, and force me to embrace unconventionality that I wasn't normally so quick to embrace. The first level, Miniature Overture, was built on April 18, 2018, somewhat as a shoutout to Jeffrey's set opening with a layout from an Archie Pusaka level. From there, The Manhattan Project, Open Circuit, and Crown Jewels were built within that one night, and the rest of the set took off from there. Many of the most difficult levels were made within the first third of the set being built, which helped define some degree of expectation of what the difficulty curve could look like (certainly steeper than CCLP4). I took a break after building the 60th level, Just Passing Through, but would return to the editor in September while on a business trip to construct the next stretch of 20 levels, starting with Every Bomb Has a Silver Lining after I thought about building a spiritual successor to Color Coordination. After building level 80, Chip! In! Spaaaace!, I took another hiatus to focus on optimizing, but later came back in the new year to build the remaining 69 levels within an eight-week sprint, starting with A Mine Is a Terrible Thing to Waste and ending with Manaan on February 28, 2019.
Looking back, I'm thankful for the various opportunities to get out of my design comfort zone. I probably wouldn't have had the idea for, say, You Break It, You Buy It if I didn't have Present Company to work with. Half the challenges in When One Door Closes probably wouldn't exist if Utter Clutter wasn't such a tightly constructed set of walls that inspired outside-the-box thinking. And the unusual layout of Booster Shots pushed me to use a palette of tiles in some fun ways to create Slick Slimy Slurpee. Every challenging layout crossed off the list felt like a personal triumph and urged me to keep pressing on and continue designing, and I'm so grateful for that. Overall, I'm fairly happy with how the set turned out!
A few notes on the distribution: this download contains a .zip file with three versions of the set, much like Josh Lee's Walls of CCLP3 (which was also inspired by Jeffrey's set as well!). The "unlabeled," vanilla version, Walls_of_CCLP1.dat, is the intended way to play through the levels and is ordered mostly by difficulty. Walls_of_CCLP1_A.dat is the "wall order," in which all the levels are ordered by where their originating counterparts appeared in CCLP1. Finally, Walls_of_CCLP1_B.dat is the "design order," in which all the levels are ordered by when their first version was completed. Most updates from this point forward will more than likely be minor.
Enjoy playing, and be sure to leave a comment! I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Another bump to this topic...
I have now added the CC2 level set section to my site. It is horribly out of date, so I would appreciate any and all help in getting it up to date.
http://pillowpc2001.net/levels/index.php?set=2
I eventually plan on correcting the solvability tables...right now they still look like the CC1 table and show/save a column for MS and Lynx. I have a note to ignore this for now and just use the MS column for submitting solvability, but hopefully this will be fixed soon.

CC1 (MS)
089: 402 (+2, b) [Block Buster]
5,977,370 (137 bolds)
Some stats...
I attempted this a lot a couple years ago, during my initial CC1 push. I had 0 successful green keys (on pace) but managed to get it once after a couple hours and played out the level for a 387. My score stayed there until yesterday. I grinded for about 2 hours and didn't get the green key at all, but through careful analysis of the 402 video, I was able to slowly but surely figure out common mistakes and avoid them. Then I got the green key and immediately messed up the second room. A while later, I'd gotten more green keys, bu no second room successes. Then I got one that was a move behind- died at third room. Then I got one on pace that ran into a wall immediately after the 4D. That was discouraging.
What wasn't discouraging was the fact that I was starting to get the green key much more often, so losing attempts past it didn't hurt as much. Then I finally reached the last room on 402 pace... and immediately missed the first block intercept. I played it out and ended up with a 385, which didn't even improve. A few green keys later, I got back... and missed the final half wait.
Day 1:
Green Keys: 35
Second Rooms: 12 (6, 12, 16, 19, 21, 24, 27, 28, 30, 31, 33, 35) (bolded numbers oofed after 4D) (italics is technically a fail)
Third Rooms: 7 (16, 21, 24, 27, 30, 31, 35)
Fourth Rooms: 0
After that set of attempts, I wanted to keep going, but my hand was too fatigued to get the DDDUULUR chain at the end at this point, so I stopped for the night. The next morning I tried for another hour, and after 2 consecutive failures to the DULUR to get the second block at the end, I took a pause. I'd been inputting at full speed and thinking I was going too slow. But a quick analysis showed that it was actually DUL (small pause) UR! With that gotcha realized, I had a few other boosting mistakes on the last 2 blocks, but I was consistent enough at getting to the end that it hardly mattered. I even got to the last 2 blocks on two consecutive attempts!
Day 2:
Green Keys: 17
Second Rooms: 10 (1, 2, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17)
Third Rooms: 10 (1, 2, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17) (bolded numbers are 401s that mis-executed the final boosting chain, but were perfect until after the last blockslide)
Fourth Rooms: 1 (17)
Total green keys to success: 52.
Total successful second rooms: 22 (yeah, 30 failures on the half waits and UU[1/2]UU stuff, + 4 5D instead of 4D)
Total attempts at the last room: 17.

Hey everyone. Remember me?
Maybe, maybe not. My last visit was in 2016.
The year 2017 was, honestly, quite a mess. It had its share of good things and bad things, but let's not go into the details.
A few months after I left, I found myself missing CC. Josh's email about CCLP4 rather made me want to come back. Looking back on it, I don't know why I didn't. Sure, life WAS busy, but surely I could have just stopped by?
Ah well. As my former girlfriend said, "regret is pointless. But the future is something we can change."
So I'm back.
Real life still IS busy, so I probably won't be as active as I used to. No more LPs. But I DO plan to check out CCLP4, and some custom sets, and keep expanding C1059-CC2.
Also, I wish to apologize to some people here. When I logged in today, I realized that I had a few PMs. I THOUGHT I had enabled email notifications, but apparently I didn't, leaving these people without a reply. Also, I wish to apologize for being somewhat of a jerk to Josh, Cyberdog, Michael, Zane, Alice, and other members I'm not thinking about at the moment. I'm sorry. I'll try to improve.
Also, Happy New Year everyone

After various Discord discussions, here are the final level submission rules. I've mirrored this in the original post in this topic:
Obvious criteria: no unsolvable levels, no busted levels, no levels that have appeared in any official level pack before, no blatant level mods
Level content: It has been decided that no contents other than those listed above will restrict a level from being accepted into voting. CC1 boot levels, zero directional blocks, blank no signs, any misc hex edited tiles, hide logic, and inaccessible bonuses are allowed. Viewport, RNG setting, and map size can be anything. No preliminary bans were put it effect since these levels are in the minority and the voting results will better gauge community interest in these types of levels.
Level solutions: MUST be provided. This is mostly to reduce time staff spends testing submitting levels (which, I know from CCLP1 and CCLP4, takes a while). If you are having technical troubles recording solutions to your levels, we can accommodate.
What to submit: Your submissions need only be C2M files. C2G files are not required and are not even encouraged. Levels will be jumbled during the voting process and the final pack assembly so C2G files are unnecessary. This also means advanced scripting (level warps, inventory setting, etc.) are implicitly banned since they aren't contained within a C2M file.

Thanks again for everyone who entered this competition, the average level of quality here was incredibly high and ranking these came down to the slimmest of margins. Literally any of the levels in the top half could easily have been the winner, and very minor changes to levels could also have resulted in several place changes. Onwards to the results!
12th place:
11th place:
10th place:
9th place:
8th place:
7th place:
6th place:
5th place:
4th place:
3rd place:
2nd place:
1st place:
Thanks again to everyone who entered, I know I'm looking forward to seeing what's on offer for Tyler's Create!
Final results:

You could e.g. put some bonus flags on the small island separated my the river / the water tiles at the start, this way the block is needed to obtain them, which means, it isn't available to block the ball

Happy New Year everybody (well most of everyone some still are waiting for it to come). it has been a while since I've posted anything but here I am back again. Hope everybody enjoyed 2017 cause I know I did with CCLP4 and all events that happened to me. Lets give 2018 another good experience and hopefully more Chips Challenge.

All downloads in the download section on cczone currently seem to be affected by a script injection violating the same-origin policy!
This means either the site is currently compromised by a virus or a serious bug in the client side code:
The sanitized origin of the attack is s3.amazonaws.com.
Edit: Since the whole site is running on amazon simple storage service via cloudfront it's most likely a bug in the sites code, not using the correct uri.

Yep, it's that time again, where a designer puts some record of their thoughts about their levels for everyone else to read. Today I'm going to be talking about Ultimate Chip 6, which contains 60 levels and will probably not be updated for quite a while to come. So let's dive right in!
1. Welcome to the 21st Century
This was one of the first levels I put together after the time trial designs, and the goal was to craft a simple itemswapper with a very sprawling feeling to it. Does it feel like something that would have been made around the time CCLP2 was made? Possibly- but the design still has the modern touches of no rooms or hallways being diagonally adjacent. That's something that I personally don't like the look of in most cases, and that's why this level curls back in on itself. In hindsight, it's not the best introductory level for this set, but I didn't really have a better one, and I'm not unhappy with it as it shows that UC6 can and will contain... whatever I felt like throwing in.
2. Quantum Tunneling
After Miika ran a mini TT with his own level, Twice the Fun, I decided I liked running through the upper ball corridor, especially with how the balls would bounce off to always allow passage if the first was survived. So I went with that on a smaller scale, added a bunch of bombs and a force floor slide to give the balls a second purpose, and had an easy level that was pretty fun to play.
3. Snowball Mountain
Back to back ice aesthetic levels! I tend to use ice and force floors a lot in my designs, and also have an aversion to large empty spaces (that I'm working on, thankfully). Anyway, this level was originally conceived as a maze TT level, but it proved too easy to route. Level name borrowed from Ape Escape 2, continuing the trend of monkey game named ice themed levels after UC3's Frosty Retreat, UC4's Hot Springs, and UC5's Snowy Mammoth. Unfortunately, I'm out of Ape Escape ice levels without monkey puns in the name for the future!
4. Repetitive Repetition
I had just watched the Game Maker's Toolkit episode on Hitman and the art of repetition, and had the thought- what if I could turn that into a CC level? That's kind of what optimizing already does, but how can I capture that feeling to create an entire level around it? Then the concept kind of morphed into "hey, let's make the same room 3 times but with minor variations that allow shortcuts lol" and it's not that good of a level. However, I've since re-used this repeated room idea to make a much better level that very few people have seen- I'll release it eventually guys, but for now, James says it's super legit.
5. Key Free
The original idea here was a puzzle level where you'd alternate sides taking keys and boots and having to move several objects around in a multi-stage puzzle. Then I couldn't figure out how to begin designing such a puzzle and still don't have a clue (concept is up for grabs!), so around Thanksgiving I sat down at a relatives' house and threw this together. One of Tyler or Shane got tripped up by this level, surprisingly. It's pretty easy with a load of extra keys, but as a little optimizing bonus it's possible to end with the fire boots on the left side, saving some time. Honestly, that little tidbit is why this level stayed in its current form- I added a decent amount of little bonuses for the attentive in this set, and I'll point them out in these musings.
6. Sneaking in the Back Door
Ahhh, this level. When I set out to build this level, I knew I wanted it to be rotationally symmetric and on an island, but beyond that I didn't have too much of an idea. Then I decided to place chips with a lock on one side, and a bomb on the other. This led to adding a teeth monster in order to skip a key, and the original design had 2 of each key and 1 teeth, requiring 0 teeth bombs. Then I changed it to 4 teeth and 1 of each key, and wasn't sure which version was better, as this was meant to be a fairly easy level. Mostly thanks to Miika's suggestion, I took a third option of 3 teeth (better symmetry at the start!) and 1 of each key, requiring 3 back door entries. You do have to be a little careful, but it's still not too difficult.
7. Tonberry Estates
Walls from Key Farming, was entered in the Walls of CCLP1 create competition. Again, I'm mentioning Miika, but I'm sorry- that sokoban is clever and fits perfectly in the room. Oftentimes teleport sokobans revolved around partial posts, so I set out to build one that was non-trivial in that space and used the teleports as alternate loops. The rest of the level is some simple itemswapping, dodging and chip collecting, before some semi-blind fireball manipulations with a toggle button. I went through great pains to keep this part from being cookable, and I think I succeeded- though if you're not careful with the locks used earlier, you can render the fireball stuck. Don't do that.
8. Encased, Just In Case
Oh look, a Time Trial level! This sort of chip collecting romp isn't too interesting to just play, but routing it was actually quite interesting. The original version of the level had recessed walls instead of red and blue obstacles, which would have created easier shortcuts but ultimately been less interesting. Other than that, there's not much to say here.
9. Tunnel Boring Machine
I do like monster manipulation challenges quite a bit, and this level is nothing but a monster manipulation challenge, albeit a very lenient one with respect to monsters. You only need 8 or 9 total I think, and there are 16 in the level. That said, the dirt involved is a limited resource that has to be used somewhat carefully in order to access the central chips. Some will probably find this level boring (insert rimshot here) but I liked playing it in testing and still think it's a fun level- takes a little thought, but not full focus.
10. Tesla Foil
Josh mentioned a concept about unmaking partial posts, so I tried my hand at building a level like that. Unfortunately, teleports can be pretty broken and the level is irredeemably busted. Despite this, the intended path is pretty interesting, using symmetry in design but distinct rooms to keep a theme going without overstaying its welcome. Oh and the ending has been described as "what" and "bonkers", even though it's just a toggle door path Even with the bust, this is one of my favorites from the set.
Now I see why Andrew has done his designer commentary in groups of 10 levels. Must upstage everyone though- onwards to another... 5.
11. Red, Brown and Red
Another time trial level, this time with a cloning theme and obviously inspired by Red, Green and Blue. Optimizing cloning is very difficult, as it generally devolves into chaos and just trying everything. My goal with this and the other level was to craft a cloning level based around ideas and specific smaller scale collisions, rather than spamming the button and hoping everything works. Did it work here? For the most part- the toggle door at the end was the trickiest part to try to route, and a solution one second faster than my 90% logical solution exists. When I was optimizing this (as I did so before the competition to ensure the process was reasonable) I identified a timing that would clear out the lowest bombs, and then tried a few variations with the spare moves I had until I found one that was fast. As a casual level, it's okay, borrowing more from Four Plex without the toggle buttons. Slightly tedious perhaps, but not uninteresting, thankfully.
12. Primordial Ooze
Mazes with force floor walls have become slightly overdone in recent times- Forced Circuit by Josh, Jungle Fever by J.B., Cluttered Crosswalks and Bisection by me... these all do different things with the core concept, but ultimately are mazes where the walls aren't always walls. In this level, named after the second level of Ape Escape, I didn't really do anything to spice up the force floor sections. However, the water mazes I took advantage of the fact that they're water and added a few blocks to bridge to otherwise unreachable areas, adding a small thinking element to the maze. A few toggle doors to take advantage of the force floors later, and I had a symmetric chip placement maze that's actually pretty fun to play.
The time limit is 280 because my time attack time is 2.80, though this will be dropping about .05 soon
13. Transmission
After You Can't Teach an Old Frog New Tricks came onto the scene, full level monster guidance puzzles have almost universally been difficult, with Andrew's One Tank's Adventure being the easiest. Others that come to mind are Guiding Light (me), Set-up (Shane), Get the Ball Rolling (J.B.) and A Bug's Life (me), using most of the monsters in the game. I'd even tried making a level like this before I'd played OFNT that featured a blob, titled... A Boy and His Blob in UC2. However, that left a gap in easy guidance levels, and the humble paramecia is often forgotten, so I elected to change that. Side note- gliders and walkers still need this kind of level, unless there is one for either of them that I'm unaware of.
Anyway, this level has another one of those bonuses for the attentive- there's no chip socket, as the chips were a last minute addition to try to trick people into doing extra steps. The dirt section can be done from either direction, the toggle and tank rooms require active attention (and setting up the tank room was a pain) and the ice room has been complained about, but it can be set up in advance or you can actually move the blocks with the paramecia chasing you! Yes, it's possible!
14. Interdependent Line
Walls from Eddy's Honey Bomb, found in NSG-Rejects. This one was honestly inspired by The Witness, in a weird sort of way. There's nothing too out of the ordinary here, just a key ordering puzzle with a simple gotcha, a recessed wall section outlining some gravel, and luring a teeth through half the level to gain access to the exit. The means of exiting was something I'd specifically wanted to use for a little while, and the socket being only the first step out of several was another common design trope I wanted to avoid. Yep, UC6 as a whole looks at conventional design decisions, uses them for the most part, but the moment they became inconvenient I ignored them... which wasn't often.
15. Crazy Box
LOL walker level. I still think Hysteria from UC5 is my best walker dodging level, but come on- it's practically mandatory to include one of these.